Early August marks the halfway point of the calendrical summer season – although most of us view Labor Day as the end of “real” summer. (Students may view the start of school in August as the end of their summer!)
The late and wet spring and resulting delayed planting have caused many challenges in what seems to be somewhat unusual weather patterns this year. Let’s hope for a good growing season and a long, warm, and dry harvest season to lead into winter.
We recently took some time to visit our daughter in the state of Washington. I’ve included a few photos of the trip along with this article.
It is a beautiful state with a stark contrast of geography from Puget Sound in the Seattle area, to the awesome sight of Mt. Rainier in the Cascades mountain range, to the high desert conditions and minimal plant life in the east side of the state.
We were fortunate to visit Vancouver and participate in Canada Day on July 1 (their Independence Day), as well as to enjoy the traditional July 4th celebrations and fireworks in eastern Washington. We also toured Reactor B at the Hanford facility. This was the first reactor in the world to manufacture plutonium during World War II. Some of the plutonium from that site was used in the bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki Japan, which effectively ended the war. It was amazing to see what was accomplished in such a short time to build a manufacturing complex with nearly 50,000 workers in the middle of a desert in eastern Washington during that time frame without computers or modern construction equipment. Many of the technological advances from that era have changed the way of life for us as compared to our grandparents’ generation and helped to shape the modern geopolitical world.
For those of you that were not able to attend our Annual meeting in early June, I did want to pass along one of the topics I discussed. As I have previously mentioned, EIEC completed a Cost of Service Study in 2018, and we are preparing for the follow-up rate study later this year. EIEC has not changed its distribution rate components since 2013. We will need to adjust our rates soon (our current 2019 budget year has no increases). We are continuing to review and analyze the cooperative’s needs and will keep you advised of any Board decisions.
The end of August brings the start of football season and cooler evenings – make sure to support your favorite local high school and college football teams.
Cooperatively,
Bob Hunzinger